Tech

The Kiwi Ears x Z Reviews Serene are a set of wired, closed back headphones that feature planar magnetic drivers. The headphones have been designed by Kiwi Ears in collaboration with Z Reviews, hence the name.

Planar magnetic drivers are built differently to diaphragm or dynamic drivers found in most headphones.

Instead of a single diaphragm that vibrates using a coil and a fixed magnet, the planar magnetic drivers consist of a flat film that has a electrical conductor embedded in it. A set of electromagnets are used to vibrate this film, which is how it is able to produce sound.

Last year I was looking around for a new phone. I had been using a Samsung Galaxy S10+ for around 6 years and whilst that was a flagship phone at the time, I was looking for a bit of an upgrade.

The S10+ was struggling to take pictures that still looked good on modern hardware and couldn't make use of the newer 5G signals. Plus, my son was off to university and was looking for a new phone that was reliable (and didn't have a cracked screen).

I had seen Nothing when they released the Phone (1) back in 2022. It looked like an interesting phone, and I quite liked what the company was doing. Their subsequent models of phones and earphones were getting good reviews, and seemed reliable.

Kiwi Ears Altruva are a set of wired headphones that have an opened backed design. They connect via a standard audio jack interface, which has a built in adapter so it's compatible with 3.5mm or 6.35mm connections.

I usually spend about an hour a day on video conference calls (sometimes much, much more than that) and I have a set of headphones that I use for this. Actually, I have used the same headphones for this purpose for the last 5 years so when Kiwi Ears reached out to offer me the Altruva headphones I was keen on giving them a go as my daily drivers.

In this article we will look at the Kiwi Ears Altruva headphones, their build quality, functionality, and how they sound.

Kiwi Ears Spark are a set of open earphones that have bluetooth support. Open earphones or ear buds are a relatively recent development in earphones that sit on the outside of the ear, rather than being pushed into the ear canal.

I haven't tried open earphones before so I was interested in seeing what they were like.

In this article we will look at the Kiwi Ears Spark Bluetooth Earphones, their functionality, how they sound, and what sort of environments they would be most useful for.

When I bought my Keychron K2 in 2020 I was happy with it for a couple of years before I wondered what other options were available. During that time Keychron lunched quite a few different keyboards, including updates to the K2. The K2 I have is version 1, and whilst it is a good keyboard I was looking for a keyboard with more features and hot swappable switches so I could experiment a little.

Whilst looking at the Keychron site I found the Q3 Pro, which is a TKL keyboard that has a wheel and 4 macro keys. I actually went for the special edition of this board, in olive green.

The Kiwi Ears Ardor are a set of over ears headphones that have Bluetooth, AUX cable and USB-C connectivity. They also include active noise cancelling (ANC) and can be used to make and receive calls when attached to a phone.

In this article we will look at the headphones, what their features are, how they operate, and how they sound.

It should be noted that Kiwi Ears sent me the headphones for review, but they did not read the review before hand and do not get a final say in the opinions of the review.

The box the Ardor came with was well constructed, and even had a couple of air holes that allowed the box to slide open easily, which is a nice design touch. Inside the box was the Ardor case, which contained the headphones, the included cables and the instruction manual.

I was doing some research into the Raspberry Pi a while ago and I happened to come across a neat little enclosure for the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 (CM4) called the uConsole.

The CM4 is essentially a normal Raspberry Pi 4, but it comes without the normal USB/HDMI interfaces that the Pi 4 comes with. This means that in order to use the CM4 you need to plug it into a separate PCB, which then provides the interfaces needed to attach monitors and peripherals.

This is where the ClockworkPi uConsole comes in. The uConsole (or micro console) is an enclosure for the CM4 that features a built in screen and keyboard, a track ball, small speakers, a battery pack, and an optional mobile network card.

I was scrolling through The Pi Hut website recently and my eye was drawn by a case for the Raspberry Pi Computer Module 4 (CM4) that looked like a modified Nintendo Gameboy. I had bought a CM4 for another project, but as that project wouldn't be delivered for a few months I was looking for something useful to do with the CM4 in the meantime.

The GPi Case 2 from Retroflag is a case that accepts the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 (CM4) and is used as an emulation station. Using the right software, it is possible to add files to the system that allow you to play games from a variety of different platforms. If you go for the WiFi CM4 you can also connect Bluetooth controllers to the unit and even use WiFi to transfer files.

I have a lot of CDs. It isn't a "serious" collection, but I have been collecting CDs for at least 30 years so I have a couple of hundred there.

Taking a large CD collection everywhere with you isn't feasible, so I've been ribbing my collection to MP3 for a number of years. Recently, I've started to notice that MP3 doesn't have amazing sound quality, which is more apparent on higher quality audio equipment. MP3s are fine for cars and similar, but not ideal for listening on more serious sound systems.

Since my CD player died a few years ago I have been unable to listen to them in any other way. There is just something about the physical experience of playing music from a medium like the CD that appeals to me so I have still been buying CDs since then.

Last year I was looking through the shop at Mechboards and saw that they had a number of Lily58 R2G (ready to go) kits available. These are kits that have all of the soldering done and are pretty much complete, they just need some switches, keycaps and assembly.

My trusty Keychron K2 has been my daily driver for about 3 years now, so I was looking for something a bit different to type on. I have found that if I try to swap to a keyboard that is similar to the K2 I end up hitting the wrong keys.